[chermi]

I'd wager many of those connections are serving much more than one person, considering they're often hubs in rural areas. But screw them.

It's interesting how if it's anti-elon, it's ok to complain about how the poor are causing the privileged some difficulties.

[runarberg]

I would like to see stats how many people got new connections via traditional infrastructure. I bet that number is much higher, probably even an order of magnitude higher.

This is HN, so I should probably look for the data my self...

EDIT:

In 2024 global internet usage grew from 5.3 billion users to 5.5 billion. Starlink grew by only a 1/100 of that in absolute terms, from 2 million users to 4 million over the same time period, majority of users in the USA already had access to the internet via traditional infrastructure.

I tried to find how many StarLink users got internet access (or even high speed internet access) that didn’t have one before, but I couldn’t find the numbers. Somebody could correct me, but I very much doubt that number is high enough to consider StarLink to make even a blimp in providing internet to new users.

EDIT EDIT: I was off by a factor of 100 in initial EDIT, see child post.

[londons_explore]

> In 2024 global internet usage grew from 5.3 billion users to 5.5 Starlink grew by a similar absolute amount, from 2 million users to 4 million over the same time period,

Is this some AI answer or did you foobar this math by a factor of 100?

[runarberg]

Whoops, a standard off by a factor of 100 error.

StarLink got 2 million new subscribers in 2024. Meanwhile the internet got 200 million new users. So even if every new StarLink subscriber would be a new internet user (which is obviously not true) they would still only account for 1% of new internet users. The real number is off course much much much lower.

[chermi]

This is definitely a small number. But I don't think it tells the whole story. Not every n+1 is the same. New satellite hookups in rural places, especially poor rural areas, combat zones, emergency situations etc. are more impactful than a new wired hookup in a city where there's already wifi in the library, for example.

[runarberg]

You made the statement:

> It's interesting how if it's anti-elon, it's ok to complain about how the poor are causing the privileged some difficulties.

Now it is up to you to show that this has outsized influence on impoverished communities.

According to ITU[1] the number one factor for lack of internet access is economical. The price of internet access can be reduced with traditional infrastructure, but governments are often unable or unwilling to invest in the infrastructure needed to bring faster and cheaper internet connectivity to underserved areas. StarLink should in theory fit perfectly here, but in reality very few people from underserved communities, especially in impoverished areas, can afford StarLink, and keep being underserved. What makes this even worse is that in the rich countries (like the USA and Australia) underserved communities that had been promised infrastructure to bring the broadband internet are facing delays and cancellations because politicians believe the community can get StarLink instead (when in fact they cannot afford it). This is known as the Uber effect (from when politicians used Uber as an excuse to cancel public transit projects).

1: https://www.itu.int/itu-d/reports/statistics/2024/11/10/ff24...

[inemesitaffia]

If the community can't afford Starlink, surely they can run Fiber and buy equipment from Ciena and Nokia (Huawei outside the US) to light it up themselves since it's more affordable than Starlink in your view.

[chermi]

You've mentioned the uber effect about 100 times now, I get it. I honestly don't know just how mad (I'd wager not very) the average city resident is that they have uber now instead of maybe some shitty transit system with two routes out of 20 promised in 15 years 500% over budget. I do VERY MUCH wish we built solid, modern, useful public transit on budget in a reasonable amount of time. But it's honestly wishful thinking at this point.(3)

Similar story for deploying broadband, especially last mile. The government hasn't been very good at that from everything I've seen (1, including starlink's failure).

As for starlinks deployments, I can't find good numbers, so perhaps I was overconfident. I wish I could find more examples, it seems like they could be doing much more than they are, but they are a for-profit company. Given that it can serve rural, poor, otherwise disconnected communities, would you be for or against using starlink to serve them through some government-backed/subsidized efforts?(2)

(1) ---The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) RDOF is one of the most recent and troubled examples. It was a $20.4 billion initiative to bring high-speed broadband to millions of unserved homes and businesses.

Massive Defaults and Questionable Winners: In the first phase, the FCC awarded $9.2 billion to over 300 companies. However, major problems quickly emerged.

LTD Broadband: The single largest winner, provisionally awarded $1.3 billion, was ultimately denied the funds by the FCC in 2022. The FCC determined that the company, a small fixed-wireless provider, failed to demonstrate it had the technical and financial capability to deliver the promised fiber-to-the-home service to nearly 600,000 locations.

Starlink (SpaceX): The fourth-largest winner, provisionally awarded $886 million, also had its award rejected by the FCC. The agency cited that the satellite technology was "still developing" and questioned its ability to meet the program's long-term speed and latency requirements.

Widespread Defaults: By 2023, bidders had defaulted on their commitments for over 23% of the locations they had won in the auction, leaving millions of Americans in limbo and forcing the FCC to try and reclaim those areas for future funding.

---The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) - 2009 This program, part of the 2009 Recovery Act, was a grant-based system rather than a reverse auction, but it provides a clear example of budget and delivery failures.

"The Road to Nowhere": One of the most infamous examples was in Eagle Butte, South Dakota. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Telephone Authority was awarded a $36.7 million grant to build a fiber network. Years later, a report from the Department of Commerce's Inspector General found that after spending $28 million, the project had connected only 70 customers, was nowhere near completion, and was plagued by mismanagement.

(2) https://techafricanews.com/2025/06/18/starlink-proposes-us27...

https://southernafricantimes.com/rwanda-and-spacex-sign-agre...

"200 Terminals for Amazon Communities: In Brazil, Starlink has provided at least 200 terminals to schools and healthcare centers in remote Amazonian communities, providing a vital link for education and telehealth."

(3) Of course, I predict one possible retort that it's these very same "oligarchs" that are tearing down the government and rendering it unable to build public infrastructure, thus lining Musk's and friends' pockets. To that I'd say, look at very blue california's high speed rail. Yes, trump did just take away some their funding, but it's been like 20 years now? And they're about 300% over budget, and their timeline doesn't even including full completion, but we can safely say 15+ years behind schedule. I'm not blaming democrats, I'm saying there's a systemic problem with state capacity. It is, very sadly, just not reasonable to expect much from the government when it comes to building public infrastructure.

[dweinus]

If we wanted to subsidize internet for rural and low-income communities responsibly, we could invest in fiber and other solutions, and control the externalities (this is exactly the ReConnect program is). Starlink is not that, it is a classic case of privatizing profits by socializing hidden externalities, in this case to the entire world. Externalities in the form of pollution that will cost us all more than fiber in the long run. Funny story though, Starlink was awarded a $900M subsidy to provide rural USA internet access. In the end, that money was not given because the FCC found that Starlink "failed to demonstrate that the providers could deliver the promised service.". So no, it is not about screwing rural people, it's about not getting taken advantage of by fat cats and grifters like Elon.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If we wanted to subsidize internet for rural and low-income communities responsibly, we could invest in fiber and other solutions, and control the externalities

Running cables across out land is less impactful than lofting satellites?

[dweinus]

Per the article, Starlink runs 8k satellites with an average life of 5 years. They launch in payloads of 20-40 satellites. That's 50+ launches per year if everything goes perfectly. About a million pounds of kerosene per launch. Plus everything else that goes into the rockets and satellites. Then the pollution impact from the launches and reentries. Then the eventual need to clean up LOE to avoid Kessler Syndrome. So yeah, well understood ground tech may be cheaper over the lifecycle. At a minimum, it should be a reasoned choice, not environmental debt pawned off by the richest man in the world.

[JumpCrisscross]

> About a million pounds of kerosene per launch

Quarter of a million pounds kerosene per Falcon 9. Zero for Starship, which burns methane. (And thus emits pure methane, CO2 and water vapor.)

> the eventual need to clean up LOE to avoid Kessler Syndrome

Not a thing. (Search this comment thread for the term. There are good answers on the current state of research.)

[dweinus]

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2024/09/12/spacex-launches-...

...but sure, for the sake of argument, maybe it's only a quarter million lbs of kerosene 50 times a year, upper atmospheric pollution, and LEO crowding that gets solved by HN comments. ...instead of a dumb cable that doesn't come with a side of funding a billionaire neo-nazi. My bad.

[inemesitaffia]

You'd have no problem with Kuiper if SpaceX owned Corning, Ciena and Nokia and was running Fiber.

To the left with your nonsense.

The big very visible clue is SpaceX launched over 100 times in 2024 and 2025.

Why estimate when you can count?

[chermi]

The last mile problem is difficult and expensive. I think satellites are a good solution to it. As for SpaceX fucking up that contract, that sucks and is no good.

[inemesitaffia]

SpaceX didn't fuck up the contract.

You can tell because SpaceX delivers those requirements in 2025 ahead of the 2026 deadline.

[inemesitaffia]

Starlink is delivering the set that was said to be impossible by 2026 today in 2025.